Need help with Fumefx 3.5

[SiThurman]

Hi,

I recently purchased a copy of fume 3.5 and have some issues rendering...

Mental ray is what I use to render all my scenes.

I set up a normal scene which would usually consist of objects, a ground plane, a skylight and a few spot lights. Everything I do is to composite over live action footage so I use ME matte/Shadow/Reflection for ground planes, environment objects etc...

The skylight uses an environment map (MR background switcher, HDR chrome ball etc)

I setup a simple fume simulation, add the lights, run the simulation. Everything looks fine in the preview window but when I go to do my final render the smoke doesn't cast shadows on the ground plane instead the ground plane is black with a white haze around its outer edge?

I tried the same scene using the default scanline render with standard materials and Matte/Shadow and it renders fine. I have atmospheric shadows turned on for my spotlights in both simulations.

Can anyone help?

using
Windows 7 64 ultimate
3ds max 2013

best regards

Simon

[sitnisati]

Hello,

What if you use just one spot light and regular material for the plane and then render with mental ray?

Thank you.

Regards,

Kresimir

[SiThurman]

Hello,

What if you use just one spot light and regular material for the plane and then render with mental ray?

Thank you.

Regards,

Kresimir

Hi,

When rendering with regular material and one standard spot light It renders fine, I get illumination from the fire and the shadow on the plane. so it appears to be the MR matte/shadow issue.

Thanks

Simom

[SiThurman]

HI,

Some additional info....

When using a standard material the shadow will only stretch as far as the grid you use to simulate. So if the light source is low the shadow will be cut off when it reaches the grid box.

Also it appears that when using the MR matte/shadow material the grid helper is actually casting a shadow or causing AO on the plane. everything inside the grid area is not rendered. So in other words its like the grid is a box object in the scene.

Hope you can help, this is my everyday workflow.

All the best

Simon

[sitnisati]

Hi Simon,

Do you have autovolume enabled and have you moved FumeFX grid slighly away from the box ?

Kresimir

[Mr.Blank]

"when using the MR matte/shadow material the grid helper is actually casting a shadow or causing AO on the plane. everything inside the grid area is not rendered."

I have the same problem. It seems that FumeFX does not support the MR matte/shadow/reflection material...?

Mr.Blank